In designing a computer’s cache system, the cache block (or cache line) size is an important parameter. Which one of the following statements is correct in this context?

If the associativity of a processor cache is doubled while keeping the capacity and block size unchanged, which one of the following is guaranteed to be NOT affected?

Consider a main memory system that consists of 8 memory modules attached to the system bus, which is one word wide. When a write request is made, the bus is occupied for $$100$$ nanoseconds ($$ns$$) by the data, address, and control signals. During the same $$100$$ $$ns$$, and for $$500$$ $$ns$$ thereafter, the addressed memory module executes one cycle accepting and storing the data. The (internal) operation of different memory modules may overlap in time, but only one request can be on the bus at any time. The maximum number of stores (of one word each) that can be initiated in $$1$$ millisecond is ____________.

The value of a float type variable is represented using the single-precision $$32$$-bit floating point format of $$IEEE-754$$ standard that uses $$1$$ bit for sign, $$8$$ bits for biased exponent and $$23$$ bits for mantissa. $$A$$ float type variable $$X$$ is assigned the decimal value of $$−14.25.$$ The representation of $$X$$ in hexadecimal notation is